Originally Posted by
anabolism
I wanted to book: CPT-DOH // DOH-AKL // AKL-HKG-HKT // HKT-HKG-DFW-SAN // SAN-DFW-GCM // GCM-CLT-JFK-LAX-LHR-BCN // BCN-DOH-CPT. I phoned Mindpearl directly, hoping they could book, hand-rate, and issue it all at once, but they said it had to be sent to the AA RTW desk for approval and to Tariff for pricing. Mindpearl told me the AA RTW desk insisted the routing was invalid, that I could not transit DOH twice, and were referencing rule 3.2.3. I pointed out that the wording just before the 3.2.x table says One of the following backtracks is permitted (bolding added), and that my routing matched rule 3.2.2. Mindpearl agreed and went back and forth with AA RTW a few times and finally just issued the ticket themselves. I hope I don't run into problems with changing dates and applying upgrades. I don't understand why the AA RTW desk couldn't see the rule the way it seems obviously to be written.
Firstly, congrats on getting your itinerary ticketed (and I'm impressed with the mileage earning of ...DOH-AKL-HKG...
)
How did you pay for the ticket? I ask because there have been reports of non-SA credit cards being rejected by Mindpearl/AA (or rather people being charged the ex-US price if they want to use such cards).
It is sad and frustrating to see the AA RTW desk still having trouble with the backtracking provisions for Africa. I gave up on them last year (see the first post in this thread -
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/onewo...cpt-done5.html).
I ticketed with BA (by having the first flight CPT-JNB I was able to use the online tool).
However when I later wanted to change my intra-Europe/Middle East segments, I ended up having a battle with BA to get it done (see post #73 in the above linked thread). I eventually got the change done - but I had to write a detailed email to BA, which got passed to both the RTW team and the Fares team.
If you do have difficulties down the track, feel free to pm me and I will forward you a copy of the email I sent; it might be helpful.